Total of 3,171 crimes of Sexual Communication with a Child recorded in first year of new anti-grooming law.

Youngest child targeted in England and Wales was just five years old.

Essex Police recorded 60 offences of Sexual Communication with a Child during the first year of the law.

Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram used in 70% of 2,097 cases where police revealed the methods.

Government’s new laws to end Wild West Web must tackle grooming on social media

Monday, June 18:

MORE than 3,000 offences have been recorded in England and Wales in the first year since a new anti-grooming law came into force, with the youngest child targeted aged just five years old.

Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram were the top three most-recorded sites out of 80 different methods used in grooming offences.

The new crime of Sexual Communication with a Child came into force on April 3, 2017 following an NSPCC campaign, and in the first year a total of 3,171 crimes were recorded by police – amounting to nine grooming offences per day.

Police revealed which methods groomers used in 2,097 instances, and records show Facebook was used in nearly 30% of those cases, while Snapchat and Instagram were each used in around a fifth of cases.

Essex Police recorded 60 offences of Sexual Communication with a Child during the first year of the law, with 23 crimes recorded as involving Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram.

Following the NSPCC’s #WildWestWeb campaign, Digital Secretary Matt Hancock announced that laws will be brought in to regulate social networks, to keep children safe and prevent harms such as grooming.

The charity is now campaigning to ensure those laws are sufficiently robust to prevent grooming and to truly keep children safe. It is calling on Government to:

Create mandatory safety rules that social networks are legally required to follow;

Force platforms to develop technology to detect grooming using algorithms.

It comes ahead of the charity’s annual flagship conference How Safe Are Our Children? which begins on Wednesday, June 20 and has the theme Growing Up Online.

Across England and Wales, where police disclosed the gender and age of the victim, girls aged 12-15 were recorded as being the victim in 62% of cases. And under-11s were recorded as the victim in nearly a quarter of cases.

The majority of male and female victims of the offence recorded by Essex Police were aged 16 and older, with 24 cases highlighted in the figures provided.

Mared Parry, from North Wales, was sent sexual messages from men ten years older than her on Facebook when she was aged just 14.

Mared, who has waived her right to anonymity, was groomed to send semi-naked pictures to them. She said: “At the beginning it was messages like ‘Hey, how are you?

“But as the weeks went on, they started sending messages that were more and more sexual. It was so subtle; that’s why it is so easy for an online chat to slip into being so wrong.

“If I didn’t reply or speak the way they wanted me to, then they would say: ‘You’re just too immature for me’. They were so manipulative, but you don’t even notice it.

“Looking back at it now, it’s scary to think that I sent semi-naked pictures to older guys. It could have gone a lot further.”

Peter Wanless, NSPCC chief executive, said: “These numbers are far higher than we had predicted, and every single sexual message from an adult to a child can have a huge impact for years to come.

“Social networks have been self-regulated for a decade and it’s absolutely clear that children have been harmed as a result.

“I urge Digital Secretary Matt Hancock to follow through on his promise and introduce safety rules backed up in law and enforced by an independent regulator with fining powers.

“Social networks must be forced to design extra protections for children into their platforms, including algorithms to detect grooming to prevent abuse from escalating.”

How Safe Are Our Children begins on Wednesday, June 20 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, in Westminster, London.

ENDS

For further information contact the NSPCC East of England press office on 01733 306070 or eastofenglandpressoffice@nspcc.org.uk.

Speaking at the How Safe Are Our Children 2018 conference in Westminster, Mr Hancock said: “Social media platforms are effectively public spaces. And the owner of any public space, online or offline, has a duty of care to the public who are invited in.”

Suffolk Police recorded 52 offences of Sexual Communication with a Child during the first year of the law, with 27 crimes recorded as involving Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram.

A 16-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries after being stabbed in the car park of a McDonald’s restaurant in Ipswich during a violent fight in front of shocked members of the public, it has been alleged.

Author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz visited Woodbridge to give a talk at Seckford Hall about his life and works. We caught up with him to talk about his home in Orford, his love for Suffolk and how he plans to spend eternity in the county.